Cairo woke me up just before it hit. Some cats will approach slowly, purring, and nuzzle you awake. Not Cairo. His primary display of affection is a skull slam to my chin, followed by a generous slathering of wet nose. Yum.

In any case, that’s why I was awake when the earthquake hit around 1:00 am last night. A violent shake followed by long seconds of lesser shaking. I swear I heard a dark rumble, too, but I must have imagined it; my mind filling in the sensory blanks having watched too many movies it its youth.

The quake lasted long enough for me to wake up Chris. “Earthquake,” I said. “Earthquake!”

Probably not the most tactful way to tell someone unused to California’s rumbles that he was experiencing his first earthquake, but he handled it well. And at a rating of 4.5, the quake was a nice “Welcome to LA” from the city’s numerous fault lines.

Cairo purred through the whole thing. When it was over, he plopped down between us and purred some more, seemingly happy to be safe and warm even while the earth was shuddering beneath his fuzzy paws. I snuggled down into the covers. I knew exactly how he felt.

Comments

MoviePen 11 years ago .

Is this a normal Cairo-ism, or do you think he felt it coming?

Vera Nazarian 11 years ago .

Hey you know I am still not used to them when they happen.

I had *jsut* gone to bed and found a comfy position when the quake hit, so of course I exclaimed EARTHQUAKE! and halfway-flew out of bed fumbling for my glasses. Our dogs and other neighborhood dogs barked. Dunno about the cats.

Then I went back to bed telling myself ""silly me, just a four pointer (a la Independence Day)."